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Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > Optimization > Game theory
This book presents and uses a major, new database of the most serious forms of internal resistance to the Nazi state to study empirically the whole phenomenon of resistance to an authoritarian regime. By studying serious political resistance from a quantitative historical perspective, the book opens up a new avenue of research for economic history. The database underpinning the book was painstakingly compiled from official state records of treason and/or high treason tried before the German People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) between 1933 and 1945. It brings together material on resistance groups stored in the archives of the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria with previously inaccessible files from the former German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union. Through searching these records, the authors have been able to reconstruct in hitherto unattainable detail the economic, social, political, ethnic and familial profiles, backgroun ds, and influences of all 4,378 civilians of the Third Reich active in Germany, Austria and the outside territories for whom there are complete records. The findings of their research afford fresh, new interdisciplinary insights and perspectives, not only on the configuration, timing, impact and profile of resistance to the Nazi state, but also on a range of real-world behaviours common within authoritarian states, such as defection, reward and punishment, and commitment to group identities. The book's statistical analysis reveals precisely the who, how, where and when of serious resistance. In so doing, it advances significantly our understanding of the overall pattern and nature of serious resistance within Nazi Germany.
This book presents the theory of Industrial Organization in a unified and concise way. It presents the main models and results in the area, using game theory as a unifying theoretical background. Besides corrections and new sections, the new edition contains a new chapter on games of incomplete information. More than 200 excercises help the reader to understand the results of the book.
The focus of this book is on establishing theories and methods of both decision and game analysis in management using intuitionistic fuzzy sets. It proposes a series of innovative theories, models and methods such as the representation theorem and extension principle of intuitionistic fuzzy sets, ranking methods of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, non-linear and linear programming methods for intuitionistic fuzzy multi-attribute decision making and (interval-valued) intuitionistic fuzzy matrix games. These theories and methods form the theory system of intuitionistic fuzzy decision making and games, which is not only remarkably different from those of the traditional, Bayes and/or fuzzy decision theory but can also provide an effective and efficient tool for solving complex management problems. Since there is a certain degree of inherent hesitancy in real-life management, which cannot always be described by the traditional mathematical methods and/or fuzzy set theory, this book offers an effective approach to using the intuitionistic fuzzy set expressed with membership and non-membership functions. This book is addressed to all those involved in theoretical research and practical applications from a variety of fields/disciplines: decision science, game theory, management science, fuzzy sets, operational research, applied mathematics, systems engineering, industrial engineering, economics, etc.
This book employs game theory to warfare and in particular to military operations. It aims at scrutinizing the validity of the two ideas that have governed the literature on war and warfighting: One is the Clausewitzian Fog of War, which suggests that he who is able to "see" through the gunsmoke and observe his opponent's moves before he has to commit to some strategy himself, should be able to gain an advantage over that enemy; the other is the tradition of understanding military conflict as a zero-sum game. Combined, these ideas seem to imply that war always gives rise to a second-mover advantage. This book questions the validity of this presumption at the operational level of military planning. It provides a simple but rigorous game-theoretic framework in order to analyse operational alternatives for a whole range of typical conflicts Western military forces are facing, including the most recent ones such as Anti-Access/Area-Denial and supporting host nations' counterinsurgency campaigns.
Games, Norms, and Reasons: Logic at the Crossroads provides an overview of modern logic focusing on its relationships with other disciplines, including new interfaces with rational choice theory, epistemology, game theory and informatics. This book continues a series called "Logic at the Crossroads" whose title reflects a view that the deep insights from the classical phase of mathematical logic can form a harmonious mixture with a new, more ambitious research agenda of understanding and enhancing human reasoning and intelligent interaction. The editors have gathered together articles from active authors in this new area that explore dynamic logical aspects of norms, reasons, preferences and beliefs in human agency, human interaction and groups. The book pays a special tribute to Professor Rohit Parikh, a pioneer in this movement.
The study of the theory of games was started in Von Neumann (1928), but the development of the theory of games was accelerated after the publication of the classical book "Theory of games and economic behavior" by Von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944). As an initial step, the theory of games aims to put situations of conflict and cooperation into mathematical models. In the second and final step, the resulting models are analysed on the basis of equitable and mathematical reasonings. The conflict and/or cooperative situation in question is generally due to the interaction between two or more individuals (players). Their interaction may lead up to several potential payoffs over which each player has his own preferences. Any player attempts to achieve his largest possible payoff, but the other players may also exert their influence on the realization of some potential payoff. As already mentioned, the theory of games consists of two parts, a modelling part and a solution part. Concerning the modelling part, the mathematical models of conflict and cooperative situations are described. The description of the models includes the rules, the strategy space of any player, potential payoffs to the players, the preferences of each player over the set of all potential payoffs, etc. According to the rules, it is either permitted or forbidden that the players communicate with one another in order to make binding agreements regarding their mutual actions.
This original and timely monograph describes a unique self-contained excursion that reveals to the readers the roles of two basic cognitive abilities, i.e. intention recognition and arranging commitments, in the evolution of cooperative behavior. This book analyses intention recognition, an important ability that helps agents predict others behavior, in its artificial intelligence and evolutionary computational modeling aspects, and proposes a novel intention recognition method. Furthermore, the book presents a new framework for intention-based decision making and illustrates several ways in which an ability to recognize intentions of others can enhance a decision making process. By employing the new intention recognition method and the tools of evolutionary game theory, this book introduces computational models demonstrating that intention recognition promotes the emergence of cooperation within populations of self-regarding agents. Finally, the book describes how commitment provides a pathway to the evolution of cooperative behavior, and how it further empowers intention recognition, thereby leading to a combined improved strategy. "
Key environmental issues, such as biodiversity and climate change, have in recent years become more pressing than ever. Where the critical papers in the early 1990s explained the difficulties of cooperation in tackling transboundary environmental problems, later works have analyzed the various alternatives, and increased our understanding of various institutional designs and negotiation protocols' impact on the success of cooperation. This collection brings together the most important articles on the game theoretic analysis of international environmental cooperation to both confront the cooperative and non-cooperative approaches to this, and demonstrate the diversity of methods used to analyze international environmental agreements.
This volume results from the "Second International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters" held in Kalamata, Greece, June 29-July 2, 2015. The conference covered particular topics involved in natural and man-made disasters such as war, chemical spills, and wildfires. Papers in this volume examine the finer points of disasters through: Critical infrastructure protection Resiliency Humanitarian logistic Relief supply chains Cooperative game theory Dynamical systems Decision making under risk and uncertainty Spread of diseases Contagion Funding for disaster relief Tools for emergency preparedness Response, and risk mitigation Multi-disciplinary theories, tools, techniques and methodologies are linked with disasters from mitigation and preparedness to response and recovery. The interdisciplinary approach to problems in economics, optimization, government, management, business, humanities, engineering, medicine, mathematics, computer science, behavioral studies, emergency services, and environmental studies will engage readers from a wide variety of fields and backgrounds.
This monograph is devoted to the analysis and solution of singular differential games and singular $H_{\inf}$ control problems in both finite- and infinite-horizon settings. Expanding on the authors' previous work in this area, this novel text is the first to study the aforementioned singular problems using the regularization approach. After a brief introduction, solvability conditions are presented for the regular differential games and $H_{\inf}$ control problems. In the following chapter, the authors solve the singular finite-horizon linear-quadratic differential game using the regularization method. Next, they apply this method to the solution of an infinite-horizon type. The last two chapters are dedicated to the solution of singular finite-horizon and infinite-horizon linear-quadratic $H_{\inf}$ control problems. The authors use theoretical and real-world examples to illustrate the results and their applicability throughout the text, and have carefully organized the content to be as self-contained as possible, making it possible to study each chapter independently or in succession. Each chapter includes its own introduction, list of notations, a brief literature review on the topic, and a corresponding bibliography. For easier readability, detailed proofs are presented in separate subsections. Singular Linear-Quadratic Zero-Sum Differential Games and $H_{\inf}$ Control Problems will be of interest to researchers and engineers working in the areas of applied mathematics, dynamic games, control engineering, mechanical and aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, and biology. This book can also serve as a useful reference for graduate students in these area
Why do people in a business negotiation settle for less than each of them could and should receive? Two rational players face off in an economic game. Each pursues interests as conventional theory dictates, but all too often, the result is suboptimal. Why do they fail to capture what Dr. Young calls the cooperative surplus? Dr. Young proposes that the root of the problem lies in the philosophical assumptions underlying decision and game theory. The common understanding of economic rationality is fundamentally flawed, he says. It assumes that rational players are always self-interested and that they will make decisions on the basis of consequences. Arguing that no theory of economic rationality developed from this foundation can lead to the desired prescriptive results, Dr. Young maintains that a successful prescriptive theory of rationality must start from a different premise: the notion of actors as autonomous agents who act over and above their inclinations to express their identity. Dr. Young advances his own notion of economic rationality, then seeks to establish rules by which rational economic players can jointly create a common base for business negotiation. The results of bargaining will then be in equilibrium, and a solution optimal to both sides can be reached. Already praised by philosophers in Europe for its innovative vision and practicality, this book is a must for business executives and attorneys engaged in business negotiations, as well as for their colleagues with similar interests in the academic community.
The book focuses on Pareto optimality in cooperative games. Most of the existing works focus on the Pareto optimality of deterministic continuous-time systems or for the regular convex LQ case. To expand on the available literature, we explore the existence conditions of Pareto solutions in stochastic differential game for more general cases. In addition, the LQ Pareto game for stochastic singular systems, Pareto-based guaranteed cost control for uncertain mean-field stochastic systems, and the existence conditions of Pareto solutions in cooperative difference game are also studied in detail. Addressing Pareto optimality for more general cases and wider systems is one of the major features of the book, making it particularly suitable for readers who are interested in multi-objective optimal control. Accordingly, it offers a valuable asset for researchers, engineers, and graduate students in the fields of control theory and control engineering, economics, management science, mathematics, etc.
Maximizing reader insights into the roles of intelligent agents in networks, air traffic and emergency departments, this volume focuses on congestion in systems where safety and security are at stake, devoting special attention to applying game theoretic analysis of congestion to: protocols in wired and wireless networks; power generation, air transportation and emergency department overcrowding. Reviewing exhaustively the key recent research into the interactions between game theory, excessive crowding, and safety and security elements, this book establishes a new research angle by illustrating linkages between the different research approaches and serves to lay the foundations for subsequent analysis. Congestion (excessive crowding) is defined in this work as all kinds of flows; e.g., road/sea/air traffic, people, data, information, water, electricity, and organisms. Analysing systems where congestion occurs - which may be in parallel, series, interlinked, or interdependent, with flows one way or both ways - this book puts forward new congestion models, breaking new ground by introducing game theory and safety/security into proceedings. Addressing the multiple actors who may hold different concerns regarding system reliability; e.g. one or several terrorists, a government, various local or regional government agencies, or others with stakes for or against system reliability, this book describes how governments and authorities may have the tools to handle congestion, but that these tools need to be improved whilst additionally ensuring safety and security against various threats. This game-theoretic analysis sets this two volume book apart from the current congestion literature and ensures that the work will be of use to postgraduates, researchers, 3rd/4th-year undergraduates, policy makers, and practitioners.
This book features mathematical and formal philosophers' efforts to understand philosophical questions using mathematical techniques. It offers a collection of works from leading researchers in the area, who discuss some of the most fascinating ways formal methods are now being applied. It covers topics such as: the uses of probable and statistical reasoning, rational choice theory, reasoning in the environmental sciences, reasoning about laws and changes of rules, and reasoning about collective decision procedures as well as about action. Utilizing mathematical techniques has been very fruitful in the traditional domains of formal philosophy - logic, philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics - while formal philosophy is simultaneously branching out into other areas in philosophy and the social sciences. These areas particularly include ethics, political science, and the methodology of the natural and social sciences. Reasoning about legal rules, collective decision-making procedures, and rational choices are of interest to all those engaged in legal theory, political science and economics. Statistical reasoning is also of interest to political scientists and economists.
This book is dedicated to applied gamification in the areas of education and business, while also covering pitfalls to avoid and guidelines needed to successfully implement for a project. Using different theoretical backgrounds from various areas including behavioral economics, game theory, and complex adaptive systems, the contributors aim to help readers avoid common problems and difficulties that they could face with poor implementation. The book's contributors are scholars and academics from the many areas where the key theory of gamification typically comes from. Ultimately, the book's goal is to help bring together the theories from these different disciplines to the field of practice in education and business. The book is divided into four parts: Theory, Education, Business, and Use Cases. Part I provides a foundation on the theory of gamification and offers insight into some of the outstanding questions that have yet to be addressed. In Part II, the application and value that gamification can bring within the education sector is examined. The book then changes focus in Part III to spotlight the use of gamification within business environments. The topics also cover educational aspects like improved learning outcomes, motivation, and learning retention at the workplace. Finally Part IV concentrates on the applications and use of gamification through a series of case studies and key elements that are used in real situations to drive real results.
Are people ever rational? Consider this: You auction off a one-dollar bill to the highest bidder, but you set the rules so that the second highest bidder also has to pay the amount of his last bid, even though he gets nothing. Would people ever enter such an auction? Not only do they, but according to Martin Shubik, the game's inventor, the average winning bid (for a dollar, remember) is $3.40. Many winners report that they bid so high only because their opponent "went completely crazy." This game lies at the intersection of three subjects of eternal fascination: human psychology, morality, and John von Neumann's game theory. Hungarian game-theorist Laszlo Mero introduces us to the basics of game theory, including such concepts as zero-sum games, Prisoner's Dilemma and the origins of altruism; shows how game theory is applicable to fields ranging from physics to politics; and explores the role of rational thinking in the context of many different kinds of thinking. This fascinating, urbane book will interest everyone who wonders what mathematics can tell us about the human condition.
This book offers a comprehensive overview of the financial systems of major industrialized countries using the statistical framework of the financial accounts. After a discussion of how economists agreed to create a framework to monitor the financial linkages between surplus and deficit sectors, the book analyzes in detail the composition and the recent evolution of financial assets and liabilities for households (including public pension rights), firms and intermediaries. Next, the volume studies the convergence patterns of financial structures and their influence on the effectiveness of monetary policy within European countries. The final chapter unifies the previous pictures, showing how the effects of financial integration and global imbalances could have been foreseen based on the financial accounts. The analysis and information contained in the book will help the readers to understand many issues and challenges raised by the recent financial crisis.
Many experiments have shown the human brain generally has very serious problems dealing with probability and chance. A greater understanding of probability can help develop the intuition necessary to approach risk with the ability to make more informed (and better) decisions. The first four chapters offer the standard content for an introductory probability course, albeit presented in a much different way and order. The chapters afterward include some discussion of different games, different "ideas" that relate to the law of large numbers, and many more mathematical topics not typically seen in such a book. The use of games is meant to make the book (and course) feel like fun! Since many of the early games discussed are casino games, the study of those games, along with an understanding of the material in later chapters, should remind you that gambling is a bad idea; you should think of placing bets in a casino as paying for entertainment. Winning can, obviously, be a fun reward, but should not ever be expected. Changes for the Second Edition: New chapter on Game Theory New chapter on Sports Mathematics The chapter on Blackjack, which was Chapter 4 in the first edition, appears later in the book. Reorganization has been done to improve the flow of topics and learning. New sections on Arkham Horror, Uno, and Scrabble have been added. Even more exercises were added! The goal for this textbook is to complement the inquiry-based learning movement. In my mind, concepts and ideas will stick with the reader more when they are motivated in an interesting way. Here, we use questions about various games (not just casino games) to motivate the mathematics, and I would say that the writing emphasizes a "just-in-time" mathematics approach. Topics are presented mathematically as questions about the games themselves are posed. Table of Contents Preface 1. Mathematics and Probability 2. Roulette and Craps: Expected Value 3. Counting: Poker Hands 4. More Dice: Counting and Combinations, and Statistics 5. Game Theory: Poker Bluffing and Other Games 6. Probability/Stochastic Matrices: Board Game Movement 7. Sports Mathematics: Probability Meets Athletics 8. Blackjack: Previous Methods Revisited 9. A Mix of Other Games 10. Betting Systems: Can You Beat the System? 11. Potpourri: Assorted Adventures in Probability Appendices Tables Answers and Selected Solutions Bibliography Biography Dr. David G. Taylor is a professor of mathematics and an associate dean for academic affairs at Roanoke College in southwest Virginia. He attended Lebanon Valley College for his B.S. in computer science and mathematics and went to the University of Virginia for his Ph.D. While his graduate school focus was on studying infinite dimensional Lie algebras, he started studying the mathematics of various games in order to have a more undergraduate-friendly research agenda. Work done with two Roanoke College students, Heather Cook and Jonathan Marino, appears in this book! Currently he owns over 100 different board games and enjoys using probability in his decision-making while playing most of those games. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, cooking, coding, playing his board games, and spending time with his six-year-old dog Lilly.
This book offers a unique and insightful econometric evaluation of the policies used to fight transnational terrorism between 1990 and 2014. It uses the tools of modern economics, game theory and structural econometrics to analyze the roles of foreign aid, educational capital, and military intervention. Jean-Paul Azam and Veronique Thelen analyze panel data over 25 years across 124 countries. They prove that foreign aid plays a key role in inducing recipient governments to protect the donors' political and economic interests within their sphere of influence. Demonstrating that countries endowed with better educational capital export fewer terrorist attacks, they also illustrate that, in contrast, military intervention is counter-productive in abating terrorism. Recognizing the strides taken by the Obama administration to increase the role of foreign aid and reduce the use of military interventions, this book shows the significant impact this has had in reducing the number of transnational terrorist attacks per source country, and suggests further developments in this vein. Practical and timely, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of economics and political science, as well as those working on the wider issue of terrorism. Presenting a series of new findings, the book will also appeal to international policy makers and government officials.
This book covers recent advances in Complex Automated Negotiations as a widely studied emerging area in the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. The book includes selected revised and extended papers from the 7th International Workshop on Agent-Based Complex Automated Negotiation (ACAN2014), which was held in Paris, France, in May 2014. The book also includes brief introductions about Agent-based Complex Automated Negotiation which are based on tutorials provided in the workshop, and brief summaries and descriptions about the ANAC'14 (Automated Negotiating Agents Competition) competition, where authors of selected finalist agents explain the strategies and the ideas used by them. The book is targeted to academic and industrial researchers in various communities of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, such as agreement technology, mechanism design, electronic commerce, related areas, as well as graduate, undergraduate, and PhD students working in those areas or having interest in them.
This contributed volume presents the state-of-the-art of games and dynamic games, featuring several chapters based on plenary sessions at the ISDG-China Chapter Conference on Dynamic Games and Game Theoretic Analysis, which was held from August 3-5, 2017 at the Ningbo campus of the University of Nottingham, China. The chapters in this volume will provide readers with paths to further research, serving as a testimony to the vitality of the field. Experts cover a range of theory and applications related to games and dynamic games, with topics including: Dynamically stable cooperative provision of public goods under non-transferable utility Strongly time-consistent solutions in cooperative dynamic games Incentive Stackelberg games for stochastic systems Static and inverse Stackelberg games in political economy Cournot and Betrand competition on symmetric R&D networks Numerical Nash equilibria using curvilinear multistart algorithm Markov chain approximation numerical scheme for infinite-horizon mean field games Frontiers in Games and Dynamic Games will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of researchers, practitioners, and graduate students interested in games and dynamic games.
This book reports on the implementation of evolutionary-game theory in the design of distributed optimization-based controllers. First, it discusses how the classical population-game approach can contribute to and complement the design of optimization-based controllers. It shows how the features of this approach can be exploited to extend their capabilities in the solution of distributed optimization problems, and examines density games in order to consider multiple coupled constraints and preserve the non-centralized information requirements. Furthermore, it establishes a close relationship between the possible interactions among agents in a population with constrained information sharing among different local controllers. It also discusses coalitional games, focusing on the Shapley power index and proposes an alternative method of computing the latter, which reduces computational time, as well as a different way of finding it using distributed communication structures. All the proposed strategies are then tested on various control problems, such as those related to the Barcelona water supply network, multiple continuous stirred tank reactors, various unmanned aerial vehicle systems, and a water distribution system. This thesis, examined at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya and Universidad de los Andes in 2017, received the award for best thesis in control from the control group of the Spanish Committee of Automatic Control (CEA) in the same year.
The scientific and technical development of any kind of germplasm is regulated by a vast network of treaties, conventions, international agreements, and national and regional legislation. These regulations govern biotechnological innovations in plants and microorganisms, access to and use of plant genetic resources, and biosafety. This complex mix has made it difficult to arrive at global interpretations, due to overlaps, gaps, ambiguities, contradictions, and lack of consistency. The big picture is even more complex, as a series of scientific developments - gene editing in particular - have in some cases rendered these international regulatory frameworks obsolete. This book puts forward an innovative approach: a "Comprehensive Plant Germplasm System". The System is a cooperative game theory-based proposal for a binding international convention which would supersede all other conventions, treaties, national and regional legislation covering native varieties and traditional developments, heterogeneous plant varieties, microorganisms, biotechnological inventions, plant genetic resources, and biosafety regulation. In short, it offers a comprehensive framework regarding intellectual property, biosafety, and business regulation and covers all types of germplasm. If applied, the system is expected to yield higher productivity rates in crops and improved food biodiversity, as well as a new paradigm based on the promotion of innovation for "Agriculture 4.0."
Energy production and supply, as well as sourcing and consumption, are becoming evermore important in a volatile world. In this book, attention is paid to prevalent energy issues from a finance perspective. The topics discussed cover markets, prices, regulations and firms. An international group of authors from both academia and energy practice provides in twelve chapters a state of the art of the energy markets in a finance environment. They do so by discussing the current knowledge and presenting empirical research in this quickly changing and developing field. This book is the first in a planned series on energy at a high scientific level organized by the Centre for Energy and Value Issues (CEVI).
Economic Games and Strategic Behaviour is a seminal volume which introduces a model providing solutions to economic games subject to repeated play. It develops a link between strategic bargaining and the theory of self-enforcing contracts to give insights into the long-term relationships between two parties, such as firms or governments, who meet in a negotiating situation. The author provides an original approach to strategic bargaining to find a solution to economic games in which cooperation cannot be enforced by a third party. He then applies this approach to a wide range of real life situations including international environmental agreements, bilateral trade agreements, collusion between firms in industry and bargaining between buyers and sellers in the market place. The author also discusses important policy implications as well as setting an agenda for future research. Economic Games and Strategic Behaviour is an original contribution to the existing literature which will be welcomed for providing accurate outcomes for situations in which conventional theories produce ambiguous results. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of microeconomics, game theory and industrial economics. |
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